This morning there arose such a clatter….I thought to myself could it be Saint Nick? Oh no, wait! It’s the middle of February and the Triangle has braced for the Neptune polar vortex barreling out of the north. Well, not so much.

Recently, a glorious collection of blue wooden-spooled threads came to enliven my sewing stash, the gracious gift of a fellow thinning-the-herd family member. Over the years I’ve not done a lot of sewing with blues other than denim or navy so my selection of blues was, to say the least, slender. One of . . . → Read More: Threads

We’re slightly over the sixth month mark in our transition from California to North Carolina. Some of the predictable stressors have come and gone. And we are finding ourselves more comfortable than we imagined at this stage of the game.

In a part of the country where roads wind and wander . . . → Read More: Comfort

Somethings are chiseled in stone. Other things are set in cement. Which is intended to mean that somethings never change. But sometimes they do. Like we’ve been going out for Mexican food most every Tuesday night for over twenty-five years. And although we’ve found a Mexican restaurant we like here in Cary, it . . . → Read More: Cement

After the leftovers, there’s the throwaways….this year’s extra freebie calendars, expired credit cards, even the drips and drabs of craft paints that have hung around for years in a plastic bin. But as always, I can hardly stand to throw away things that just might be valuable resources for the latest and greatest . . . → Read More: Throwaways

It’s the first week of the New Year and most of the leftovers are gone. The leftover cookies have been enjoyed. The leftover Chinese Chex mix have been given away to eager grandkids. The leftover peppermint ice cream has been savored down to the last spoonful. The leftover poinsettias are still perking along . . . → Read More: Leftovers

We’re nearly six months into a new life here in North Carolina. Some days it feels like we just got here, but some days now we feel like we’ve been here forever. The hard work of imprinting a new routine that I fretted about a few months ago seems mostly a distant complaint…with . . . → Read More: New

For years I’ve had a guiding motto – Just because I can, doesn’t mean I should. Those wise words have put a damper on any number of hare-brained schemes. But sometimes, just sometimes, it’s fun to do something just because. Especially when your daughter posts a photo on Facebook and basically say, “will . . . → Read More: Because

Gifts come in many forms this time of year. The usual and expected. The random and ridiculous. But one of my favorites recently appeared on Facebook. Posted by a sweet daughter-of-my-heart, it was a photo of the beloved nativity set from her childhood that her mother had recently given her. She explained that . . . → Read More: Gifts

Time, especially this time of year, has a paradoxical quality to it. There’s never enough of it as we busily shop, bake and decorate for Christmas. There’s way too much time as we anxiously anticipate with mixed expectations the gifts, other surprises, and even disappointments, of the season.